Este artigo escrito pela própria Mandrake explica porque a companhia não vai entrar no barco da United Linux. "MandrakeSoft perceives United Linux simply as market consolidation -- several competitors choosing to merge their products -- which is normal for any marketplace. It seems that the individual companies will differentiate themselves by the services offered around their particular brand of "United Linux", and by focusing on a geographical region. We wish good luck to the newly unified Linux companies. [MV:mais no desenvolvimento]

On the other hand, MandrakeSoft would gain nothing by joining United Linux, and doing so would damage our reputation. Joining United Linux could destroy many of the features that have made Mandrake Linux so widely popular, such as our "easy to install, easy to use" approach. It should be noted that several recent polls indicate that the four United Linux companies currently rank lower than Mandrake Linux in market share. So, why would anyone choose Mandrake Linux if our product was the same as the others, plus had the added disadvantage of not being very "open" any longer? Most importantly, Mandrake Linux is a Free Software project created entirely in the Free Software spirit. The source code for all of our software development is available in realtime; plus, it's possible for anyone to join Mandrake Linux development at its root in the "Cooker". Mandrake Linux binaries have been, and will always be, freely available without restrictions or special requirements. As a result, Mandrake Linux has built a huge community of users and contributors, and is now the basis for numerous Free Software projects. The Free Software philosophy is crucial for MandrakeSoft, but doesn't seem to exist in the United Linux project."